"...dynamite fishing nearby had also damaged parts of the site." This actually is a thing? I thought this was just a fictional misadventure portrayed in an early South Park episode...

It's brutal and inefficient; but a moderately dense in-compressible fluid makes blast waves travel pretty well. Fish with swim bladders are particularly vulnerable, since they have a rather more compressible little air sac ready to rupture internally for gruesome damage; but even in fish without them pretty much anything that makes shockwaves dangerous makes them more dangerous underwater.

“Pacific Sea Resources worked with an underwater archaeologist who ensured the site was mapped and locations of salvaged artifacts documented,” Niziolek told Ars. “The company did not sell the collection for profit but gave it to the museum for research and educational purposes.”

How is that conflicting? 1278 and at least 15-20 years before that certainly qualifies as “sometime after the mid-1200s”, doesn’t it?

Unfortunately this article is made rather confusing due to some minor but important errors. First the Mongol invasion started in the latter half of the 13th century, so 1278 should likely be the year they invaded the area of the city, so a change in administrative division would have occurred during 1278-1368. It is also a bit strange to say that the Mongol invasion happened during the Yuan dynasty. The Yuan dynasty is the Mongol dynasty and created by the Mongols. The area was Song until the Mongols occupied it.

Second the Song Dynasty started in 960, but in 1127 they regrouped in the southern areas with a new capital after losing to the Jin. I guess there was a reorganization since the scientist links these dates to the creation of Jianning Fu. Song was finally defeated in 1279. The Mongols added the province level of administration on top of the system of the Song Dynasty. Thus moving lù down to fǔ-level, and fǔ further down. Creating a four-tiered administrative system.

According to a label inscribed in the bottom of a ceramic box that was part of the doomed ship’s final cargo, the ceramics were made in a city called Jianning Fu. But the city was only called that from 1162 to 1278, the year Mongol conquerors gave it a slight rebranding to Jianning Lu.

I wonder why nobody has taken pictures of the characters for identification rather early after the discovery? Most middle schooler with native Traditional Chinese education would recognize those characters immediately...

"...dynamite fishing nearby had also damaged parts of the site." This actually is a thing? I thought this was just a fictional misadventure portrayed in an early South Park episode...

It's brutal and inefficient; but a moderately dense in-compressible fluid makes blast waves travel pretty well. Fish with swim bladders are particularly vulnerable, since they have a rather more compressible little air sac ready to rupture internally for gruesome damage; but even in fish without them pretty much anything that makes shockwaves dangerous makes them more dangerous underwater.

Which is how the RAF took out the German dams during WW2, the classic Dam Busters film was fairly accurate actually.